Classic comment on Ritchie’s blog

Over at TaxResearchUK (oxymoron if there every was one for a blog name) there is a great comment that pretty much says it all for Richard Murphy and his attitude to the state/government. Why does it indicate Ritchie’s attitude if he didn’t write it? Because he hasn’t deleted it and his moderation policy is unique amongst all the blogs of the universe – he will delete anything that disagrees with him even if the person is extremely polite and courteous.

Click to see in all it's glory.

“Everyone knows that the government never really wastes money, and is actually better at looking after us than we are.”

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Shroud waving over 4-day school week

A better example of shroud waving I haven’t seen.

So North Ayrshire Council is considering cutting back school days to 4 a week for primary children. All to save £2m. I would have thought it would be a lot easier to save that amount by getting rid of a few managers or cutting back on grants given to minority groups who could fend for themselves such as the LGBT community.

Richard Curtis – money launderer

Richard Curtis in response to a request for a quote on a story about fraudsters on the BBC One Show – “The fraudsters should hand the money they got to Comic Relief”.

So Curtis is happy for a charity to money launder and to be party to a crime then?

I think Richard needs some lessons in morality. It probably explains his “No Pressure” eco-fascist film.

Fraudsters should return the money they got from their crimes to the victims not to a charity.

America was created by extremists

From the BBC’s own correspondent –

After De Tocqueville, just about every European sent to the United States has treated the posting as an invitation to help diagnose the country’s faults and suggest ways in which they might be fixed.

Americans find this a little puzzling.

After all, they reason, theirs is a country founded and created by migrants who had left the old world behind them.

And it is generally the most energetic and resourceful people who flee old lives to build new worlds, leaving their less enterprising fellow-countrymen behind them.

Actually, America wasn’t founded by those most energetic and resourceful. It was founded by those who hated their fellow-countrymen and escaped to a place where they could do what they want. So it was founded by extremists. So it is right and proper that the old world looks on America and tries to persuade them of the error of their ways and that the European model has done quite well and they should use it too.

Though seeing how the European model is attempting to be next USSR the Tea Party might have a point.

The Emperor

So the Emperor is dead. The Emperor being a 12 year old red deer stag.

All the animal lovers are up in arms about his death. To be honest even though I like animals I’m pretty much meh about it.

There are a number of factors that mean it’s not such a big deal for me.
1) Red deer stags are pretty much past it after 11 years. They no longer have their harem of 20 or so hinds. They peak at around 8 years of age.
2) The Emperor was 12 years old, so he’s had around 8 years to pass on his genes.
3) Red deers need to be culled to keep their numbers down. Yep, they are actually pretty succesful at breeding.
4) A number of young, a number of mature and the ill are culled.
5) It’s legal.
6) The landowner has been paid lots of money for the kill and he can use it to maintain the deer in the future.

Finally, because of the news loads of people are up in arms about it and clamouring for the banning of all hunting. It makes me think that someone has an agenda in highlighting hunting so that they can ban it. I suspect that most of the clamouring is from townies who don’t understand how rural life works and the countryside is not all pretty and nice. Sometimes bad things need to be done to ensure that the nice pretty countryside continues to be nice and pretty.

Motorway madness

Just been driving along the M62. Why do the information signs say such thing like it’s 6mins to the next junction which is 6miles away. What’s the point?

Telling you that there is an accident up ahead is useful. Telling you that a junction up ahead is closed is useful. Telling you that there are delays and long queues ahead is useful. Telling you that the road is clear is not useful. It’s just putting text on the sign because the sign is there. Probably on the basis that they’ve paid so many hundreds of thousands for each sign (and that’s probably true) that they have to maximise it’s use on the basis of the number of message displayed.

And then there are the other signs that indicate speed restrictions or lane closures. Why do they show speed restrictions for a number of signs and and then you start to wonder where the accident/problem is which is causing it. Then you see the end of restriction sign with no sign of any problems at all. Is anyone monitoring the motorway with their umpteen number of CCTVs? Or are they watching Eastenders on their monitors instead? I vaguely remember someone saying that these signs always carrying on indicating a problem well past the existence of the problem because it requires a motorway cop to actually turn them off on site, or something along those lines. Crazy because the longer the signs indicate a problem when there isn’t one the more it sounds like crying wolf. Eventually drivers won’t believe the signs and then you’re back at the situation where the signs might as well not exist.

IE8 for Daily Fail

I wonder what kind of customisation IE8 will have for Daily Fail readers. Probably special buttons that appear whenever an immigration story crops up to allow the reader to automatically send in racist comments.